Thermal energy storage

Common card · No. 231680

Thermal energy storage (TES) is the storage of thermal energy for later reuse. Employing widely different technologies, it allows thermal energy to be stored for hours, days, or months. Scale, both of storage and use, vary from small to large – from individual processes to district, town, or region as part of a thermal energy network. Usage examples are the balancing of energy demand between daytime and nighttime, storing summer heat for winter heating, or winter cold for summer cooling (seasonal thermal energy storage). Storage media include water or ice-slush tanks, masses of native earth or bedrock accessed with heat exchangers by means of boreholes, deep aquifers contained between impermeable strata; shallow, lined pits filled with gravel and water and insulated at the top, as well as eutectic solutions and phase-change materials. Other sources of thermal energy for storage include heat or cold produced with heat pumps from off-peak, lower cost electric power, a practice called peak...

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